'You just fly': Hoverboard designer aiming for store shelves

A Montreal engineer is hoping the day will soon arrive when Canadians can wake up in the morning and hop on their hoverboards.

Alexandru Duru has already designed a hoverboard for himself, and he recently broke the world record for the longest-ever hovercraft flight. Now, he says, he’s hoping to help others fly.

"The goal would be to get this thing in the hands of others," Duru told CTV Montreal.

Duru and his business partner, Philippe Maalouf, are working together to create a hoverboard prototype that could eventually be sold across Canada.

While the product is still being developed, the engineer has already had significant success with his early designs.

Earlier this week, Guinness World Records shared a video of Duru flying 250 metres across Quebec’s Lake Ouareau, a flight five times further than the previous record. The video of the flight has amassed more than 4,400,000 views.

Duru told CTV’s Canada AM that it took him about a year and a half to design the hoverboard seen in the video.

"This is an idea that travelled in my head for a while and at some point I just thought 'Okay, that’s something that we can actually do,' " he said Wednesday.

The design process was not always easy. Duru said he started with simple tests using snowboard boots, a propeller, and a pool, and went through a number of modifications before finding success.

"Things broke, things burned," he said. But, "we pushed it and we continued and we made a couple of first versions."

With support from his friends and family, and funding from the private sector, Duru ended up with a board that has eight motors and eight propellers. Like a snowboard, the rider straps his or her feet in. It can go up to 30 km/h, though Duru said, "we could go a bit faster."

Most importantly, the engineer said, the experience of flying is unlike any other.

"I was just floating in the air. I was feeling, somehow, very relaxed," he said. "It’s an instinct. You don’t even think about it too much. You just fly."

With files from CTV Montreal’s Tarah Schwartz and The Canadian Press